and should be read and considered carefully before investing. for a current prospectus, visit etrade.com/alfunds. and finally today, my observation on the smoking bomb waiting to explode for the economy and the markets. we have been hearing so many scare tactics recently, about the impact of the sequestration coming at us on march 1st. that's when $85 billion in

automatic spending cuts take effect. the president said people will lose their jobs and the list of horrors is almost endless. but earlier in the program today, one of the most successfsuccess ful hedge fund managers in the planet talked about our deaf and deficit. he said the amount of money in these cuts are a joke when it comes to our larger budget issues and soon, he says, america will face the same kind of crisis greece is facing right now. >> if we don't deal with it in the next four, five years, the same thing's going to happen, we're going to wake up, interest rates are going to explode and the next generation, they're going to have a very, very tough time and it's so unfair. >> the dysfunction washington continues as business leaders continue to raise serious concerns about the implications of the debt and deficit. and the unwillingness to address the biggest drivers of the $16.5 trillion debt. health care costs and in particular, medicare, medicaid and social security. as stan druggenmiller put it

earlier, this is now about our children and grandchildren. if that doesn't wake washington up, well, i don't know what will. that will do it for us today. thank you for joining us. see you tomorrow. "fast money" begins right now. live from the nasdaq market site in new york city's times skwaer, i'm melissa lee. crash course. the original dr. doom says beware of 1987 all over again. he explains why. buyer's market. why the time may be running out for a good deal on your dream house. real estate mogul barbara cork ran is here for us. and oscar buzz. what is the golden statue worth for movie studio profits? michael burns of lionsgate gives you a preview. b.k., start with you. >> for me, it's gold. it bounced off 1550. this is a market i have not traded well over the last couple

of weeks but we have a tradeable bottom here. you can use, let's call it 150 on the gld as your stop point, if i'm wrong tab this one. and i think even though the fed supposedly as of the minutes yesterday may be slowing down their purchases, the rest of the world isn't, so, you can still buy gld and it will -- >> you don't get spooked by that, you're like -- >> i don't get spooked by any crosses. none whatsoever. >> the big one? no? >> and the call activity backed this up, right? >> yeah. and b.k. is no vampire. that's why -- >> i do like garlic. >> but yes, we started seeing yesterday some very strong activity, to mel's point, in a number of mining stocks. and then today, both the gld, which mike khouw actually put out to some clients, and the sld had big trades where people are basically positioning for this kind of move. whether that means that they could see a downward woosh, which b.k. doesn't think we're going to get, neither do i, or

if it's a leveraged bet to the upside, i think there's a lot of interest, again, in the metals. >> karen, you took the street fight from yesterday to whole other level. >> of actually doing something with it, you mean? >> yes, i did. staples, which i think is a huge beneficiary of the potential merger, a much, much better chance of going through than the one announced 10, 12 years ago, and it's huge for staples. better than for the other two. down a lot yesterday and down a little today as well and i like it. >> let's be clear. for you, you don't know where this company is going to be in two, three years, but right now, the best buy when circuit city went away. >> yes. >> or barnes & noble when boarders went away. >> as they were on their decline. i don't think office max, office depot are going away right away, but i think, i mean, staples is great for them. >> dan, your top trade? >> to me, i've been looking for the pull-back, everybody's been looking for the pull-back, but the last two days, this was a

pretty orderly selloff here. it didn't, you know, other than what we saw in some of the commodities space, we didn't see this massive risk off thing. so, what i started to do is take some profits when i saw apple today during that einhorn call, start to firm up a little bit. the market traded up with it. i don't know if you saw that. now, you have hp's earnings that are better than expected. you could see an up opening. you have to take what the market gives you and trade around it. i took some of my qqq off short today. >> and doc? >> well, i'd say hewlett-packard. hewlett had some strong activity, whether or not i can say unusual, we'll wait on that. but very strong activity, a couple very large prints. and then a whole bunch from the final hour of trading, mel. it was really accelerating into where people may have even thought that they knew they were going to report such a beat. >> so, what do you do now? are you going to get out of this trade with this pop? >> i will, indeed. in the afterhours for the in the

money calls i have, i'm selling stock in the afterhours now for the other stuff. i think i would hold it into tomorrow. i won't really have that much of a choice. i have some 18s. there was a lot of interest in the april 18s. i don't want to sell stock against those. i have to wait to tomorrow. >> let's talk about the tech heavy nasdaq, underperforming the s&p 500 so far this year. the nasdaq up is 4%, while the s&p has gained 6%. how is the nasdaq doing without apple? it seems like day in, day out, especially yesterday when we saw the selloff, we saw the nasdaq really underperform the other major averages out there. you are, though, taking some of your shorts on the qs -- >> i'll be back in on any rally. >> so, directionally, you see down side? >> no doubt. when we think about the nasdaq, they are so levered to this pc supply chain. and it is a disaster, people. when you think about it. at the end of the day, okay, you know, this is when you want to avoid, you know, pcs make up 30% of hewlett's sales.

say want to be more like ibm. i don't think you can extrapolate the better than expected earnings today and say everything is fixed. but up know, to me, you also have smart phones. you have this -- you know, thing that's -- margin, you know, it's kind of flattening out here. so, i'm worried about tech. i think there's more down side. >> even ibm that he mentioned, we look at the new highs in the s&p 500 and dow, ibm has been going down. so, people have been getting out of these markets. if you had some kind of momentum in these and these have been the leader, you would see these making new highs. so, the price action alone concerns me about these. on the triple q, it turned on a key reversal point about 78.6% retrace of the down trend that we had from september. down to november. so, that's a key technical point and that can start to pick up. >> i want to his the pause button, go back to headquarters, check in with josh lipton. heinz earnings are out. >> yeah, heinz, which agreed to be acquired from berkshire

capital. heinz beat on the bottom line. gross margins increasing a little light here on the top line. melissa, back to you. >> light on the top line, beat on the eps. maybe this proves that the valuation that warren buffett ca cough up may be worth it? >> good for him. the food stocks for me are too expensive. >> there's been a buyer of the june 75 calls, they bought 50,000 -- >> heinz? >> paying ten cents. that's a massive bet. not a massive bet, but on quantity wise, it's sizable. not a lot of premium. somebody is betting that the bid is going to go higher, buffett is going to have to go higher. >> or that you see two dividends get paid here. >> oh, that's a good. >> that would be a buck two of dividends. >> right, right. >> so, i don't know if it will last that long. if it closes before that. >> okay. let's quickly go back to the tech conversation. i did want to get in the question as to whether or not the decline that we've seen in

the nasdaq is really because of apple. this is what paul hickey calculated. you take the nasdaq 100 equal weight, you are taking all the come poebts, equal weighting them. commissary that to the s&p 500, equal weight. you are going equal weighed and the performance is actually very similar. the nasdaq 100 equal weight for the last six months up 15.4%. the s&p equal weight for the past six months, up 16%. so, it's a half a percent difference, dr. j. >> yeah, i think apple was just such a focused stock and obviously, as we talk eed with e aig statement that all the hedge funds were just jammed in it and jammed the wrong way where they didn't want to be as it came to the down side, i would point out that as they're saying now about google, well, it's at all-time highs. how many different times was apple at all-time highs. kept climbing to september 5th when it hit $705.

so, i don't think that google is necessarily done, just because it's at a high. and i think apple is a little overdone down here in these low 400s, really. >> you think technology could come around? >> i do think that. >> if you think the market has legs, if you think the economy has legs, these are early cycle plays. and they will be great buys at some point. intel was down almost 3%. >> you are just bearish all around and so technology is a further expression of your bearishness. >> yes. i'm saying to you, at some point, some of the stocks will be a buy. if the market is going to 1650, so many people think, it will at the end of the year, technology will have to participate. that means the economy is coming back. >> let's get more on hewlett-packa hewlett-packard. check in with david faber in palo alto with the very latest. hey, david. >> hey, well, i guess it's afternoon where we both are, right melissa. >> it is, indeed, david. >> thank you.

>> so, what do the earnings look like, david? >> you know, as you know, they were better than anticipated. it's not as though there was some huge turnaround that's going to change everybody's opinion that took place in this one quarter as meg whitman said so many times and i'm sure will tomorrow morning when she joins us on "squawk on the street." this is going to have a lot of fits and starts, but certainly this is a quarter where they can claim some progress, reporting 82 cents, $28.4 billion top line number, both of which beat the street's expectations. the printing business in particular showed a better margin, an improvement in margin year of year, none of the other businesses did that. and of course all the businesses still seeing revenue declines. something that meg has said will not likely be stemmed until perhaps next year. nonetheless, despite those many words of caution from her that were bound to get and getting on the conference call right now, they are pointing at the printing business, some progress

in the enterprise systems business, the enterprise group overall has real signs that, hey, things are improving. not to mention $2.1 billion in free cash flow which certainly can at least help rebut some of those out there who worry about the company's debt position, which continues to decline, by the way, at the operating company, to $4.7 billion right now. but as you guys all know, turning around a company of this vast size is a huge undertaking and something that has taken place very, very rarely in technology. ibm, the one example that does come to mind most often, but these kinds of turnarounds are few and far between. global company with over 300,000 employ employees. none ttheles nonetheless, certainly they can point to some signs here of progress. >> right. be interesting to see if she backs away and reminds investors of what she's always done, and this could be a multiquarter, multiyear sort of turnaround story, so, just cool it when it comes to the excitement around this particular quarter. david, we look forward to the interview tomorrow.

thank you for joining us here on "fast." david faber from california, hp headquarters. "sidewalk "squawk on the street" tomorrow, meg whitman will sit down with david. you noticed unusual trading ahead of the earnings. >> i did. 3:15 eastern time, they aggressively were coming for these options, these call options. and they were selling put options. does that mean they had tomorrow's newspaper today or at least the 45 minutes into the future newspaper? perhaps they did. or, they were just very bullish and had that as an excuse as to why they loaded up on these options. there were a number of very large trades that went off in this one. the puts were outtrading the calls pretty significantly. the calls caught and passed the puts in the 45 minutes. >> was this more unusual than the usual unusual? >> well, everybody, of course, has the excuse that they're buying and selling these options

into an earnings play. >> right. >> so, you do have some cover, if you're somebody trading on tomorrow's news into something like that, because you can say, i was just very bullish. i saw a big turnaround that dan nathan cited in apple, and that was the reason i got more bullish. >> we should note that cnbc called the s.e.c., no comment from them yet. coming up next, the hefty price tag investors may soon pay. the original dr. doom tells us why the markets may be on a crash course. plus, pony up. is google on the way to 1,000 bucks a share? one stock, two opinions. and later on, while barbara corcoran is urging home buyers to ink a deal right now. where she believes prices are heading next. stay tuned. much for "fast" straight ahead. to make their money do more. (ann) to help me plan my next move, i take scottrade's free, in-branch seminars... plus, their live webinars. i use daily market commentary to improve my strategy. and my local scottrade office guides my learning

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makes it easy for anne to manage her finances when she's on the go. even when she's not going anywhere. citibank for ipad. easier banking. standard at citibank. welcome back to "fast money." i'm jon fortt. nbc.com, the website of the intertame network, that like cnbc is part of nc universal was hacked earlier today. nbc discovered that the site had been compromised and nbc worked quickly to fix it. nbc believes the situation, at least for the home page, is under control. now experts at the security company tell me this is probably

the most dangerous malware hack in five years because what the hackers were spreading. they are trying to infect computers with a piece of software that tracks what you are typing. it was built to capture people's online banking credentials so that criminals can steal money. security experts advise to run the very latest of anti-virus software. be sure it is capable of catching citadel. be sure not to use that computer to log into online banking until you know your machine is clean. this is not something we're seeing effecting nbc's news sites at all. back to you guys at "fast money." >> thank you very much, jon fortt. and if you are doing online banking, do it on a computer that is separate on a computer which you surf the internet. that's what i learned. >> psa. >> psa. exactly. just looking out for the small guy out there. let's get a market flash check in with josh lipton on aig. josh? >> hey there, melissa. aig reports and mreelss investors. swung to a fourth quarter loss

of $3.96 billion, impacted by superstorm sandy, and a charge related to the sale of its plane lease unit. still, operating results, which excludes the charge and other items, bested the streets estimates. clocking in at 20 cents a share. analysts expected a loss of eight cents. good news for hedgies. remember, according to goldman sachs, aig replaced apple as the hedge fund industry's favorite stock. melissa, back to you. >> thank you, josh. karen, you're long aig. >> i am long aig. and -- >> number one holding of hedge funds, replacing apple. does that worry you? >> yeah, a little bit. >> top ticket? >> i hope not. i mean, even though it's rebounded a lot in the last year, i still don't think it's expensive at all. i think there's major room to run. but i hate that every -- look at that bunch. >> wouldn't be in bad company with that bunch. >> interesting dynamics, as the government was exiting this last

year. >> yes. that's right. >> remember the last secondary in december that traded at 32 1/2. >> right. and that was the only chance to buy it at that price. >> traded like a hot ipo when you think about it. a lot of the guys who have been in there before, they got big allocations and the thing went straight up to 40. >> mike khouw, what do you think of aig and do you think it being the top holding of hedge funds makes it "time's" person of the year? >> people see good gains, they look to sell them, but they could be doing it prematurely for sure, in the case of aig. when you buy aig, you buy a basket of financial assets. basically a situation where it really should see the value of those assets increase and you are buying them at a discount, 55 cents per a dollar. from my eye, if you are going to look for a place to put your money, that seems like a pretty good one. i don't see any reason they should be lightning it up. >> stocks having their biggest two-day decline. should investors be prepared for a correction or even worse?

joining us now on the fast line is marc faber. marc, good to have you with us. you're going to be pretty doomy and gloomy tonight, i'm guessing, but in terms of a pull-back, you've said in the past, a 1987-like correction. is that what -- is this the beginning of that? >> i don't think that's yet there. but i think we have made the top and it could be a longer term top. i don't think the market is overbought as it was in '87, so, i don't expect a crash. but i think, for the time being, the market has peaked out. and i think that in the meantime, bonds, which are extremely oversold, could rebound. >> so, let me get this straight, marc, just to be clear for the viewers out there. you don't necessarily think at this point in time, this two-day

decline in the s&p 500, that you don't think that that is the beginning of a 1987-like crash, the parallels aren't quite there between now and '87? >> correct. what i maintain, in earlier interviews, is that either we have a correction now and then we go up further or we go straight up into high in july/august from where we could crash, so, i welcome a correction here. the question will be, after this correction, we have to watch the markets rebound, where they can make a new high or not. maybe this high, which has had that 1530 on the s&p -- >> right. >> will prove to be a longer term high. >> so, marc, you know, i know that a lot of viewers listen very closely to what you say. they are loyal cnbc watchers and they have seen you on this network in the past predicting a similar-like correction or decline in february, in may of

2012, you said that you expected some sort of a pull-back, in august of 2012, you warned of a false rally. and we haven't seen that. why should viewers believe you at this point? why now? >> well, actually, i don't think that i've been so totally wrong like you stipulate. there was a correction between mar march/april 2012. and actually june 2012. so, we had a correction and then from september onwards, when the s&p reached 1474, we also had a correction into november. at which state, i said that the market would now rally. so, i don't think that i've been so totally wrong about the moves of the market, especially since 2009. and i can document those, the performance of my portfolio. but i think that the market has

now become quite overbought and that there is very significant or overextended bullish sentiment. everybody says sell bonds, buy equities. when everybody thinks a live one, you have to be careful. >> marc, it's brian kelly. so, let's shine up that crystal ball. say we have an '87-style crash. >> i didn't say i have it now. i want to repeat this very clearly. >> yeah, okay. >> i said that if the market continues without a correction to go up until july/august, and in '87, the market went up between january and july/august, by 41%, then i think a crash scenario become s likely. >> okay, so, say we have some kind of correction. i don't want to get into si man ticks. we have a major correction, 10%, 15%, is it a buy then?

'87 was a great buy. >> i think if we have a correction of 10%, i wouldn't necessarily buy into the market. i would watch the rebound. because i think there is a very great chance that the rebound will fail to make a new high. >> all right, marc, thank you so much for phoning in. we appreciate it. >> it's my pleasure. thank you very much. >> marc faber. coming up next, in the market for a new home? why you may want to close that deal asap. real estate mogul barbara corcoran gives us her latest read on the housing market. she's here live. and what's at stake for the movie industry, as oscar fever hits a new pitch. michael burns is coming up next. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 this morning, i'm going to trade in hong kong.

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and we come back. let's go to josh lipton, check in for a market flash. >> hey, melissa. well, a swing and a miss. nordstrom reports and disappoints. offers up a profit forecast for the fiscal year that missed what the street wanted to see. the department store saying it's going to keep spending to improve ecommerce delivery. capital expenditures of $750 versus $450 million in 2012. down 2% in the of ja hoafterhou. >> thank you, josh. 7 in 10 americans have cut back on spending to cope with the recent payroll tax hike and companies like walmart are feeling the impact. the world's largest retailer issues weak guidance today, saying february sales have gotten off to a slow start. so, will the one-two punch of higher payroll taxes and gas

prices continue to weigh on the company and on other names in the space? we should be clear here that for walmart, at least, the stock had a nice pop today. it said that as the refund chucks started rolling in, it saw a pickup of active any in the first week of february, hopeful that there's normalization in the month. >> i hope we see it. sort of the flip side to the payroll tax is, i'm optimistic we'll see improving employment, which, i think, would be a good thing for walmart's bottom line. so, i think, you know, some noise in the end of last year, with sandy and what not, but i also think looking back, looking at walmart as a place in the portfolio, this is a good defensive name. and i think we might have a chart of 2008, walmart actually was one of the very, very few names we had that actually -- >> right. >> was in the green for the year. so, i like that defensive sort of position. and then, i mean, this is an outstanding business. the stock got hit on the mexico situation. >> that was actually a bottom in the stock. >> and that actually, i think, you know, created an

opportunity, which i did not take advantage of, but i think that walmart at this valuation, particularly if you look at an amazon, it's astounding to me how walmart can be this cheap and amazon can be that expensive. >> i want to take a look at one other chart we had up before, a bar chart of the u.s. comp store sales. for a long time, walmart had been dead money for ten years. this is what's happening in 2012 for quarterly same-store sales. and you can see the trend is a downward trend. this is exactly what happened when the stock was in its doldrums, in its slumber for that ten-year period. >> i hope the employment picks up and that would turn that around a little bit. the other is, remember, walmart is a huge ex-u.s. story. this is only part of the story. so, you know, there is a lot of growth out there that is not u.s. that is very significant to walmart. it does move the needle. >> mike khouw, where do you fall on walmart? >> i think walmart is a fair value story right here. it's a low beta name. if we have a market pull-back,

that's going to be helpful. it got ahead of itself last october and started to price like it was going to have more significant growth. i hear what karen is saying, there is an international growth story, but this is seeing top line and eps growth year on year of 5% and probably not going to see better than that. and this is really just a law of large numbers type of a thing, that even if you do see that international growth, it's just hard to push it. interesting that she compares it to amazon, you know, walmart once upon a time was that high multiple name, back in 2000 and it grew into it over time. >> all right. let's move on, talki about the housing rebound. prices marked the biggest percent gain in eight years. our next guest says that conditions have never been better to buy a house, but you better act fast. real estate guru barbara corcoran is here with your house-hunting strategy. barbara, great to see you. >> sounding like a real estate broker over there. >> why do you have to rush to do it?

every time you come on, you say, you got to do it now. >> yeah. >> well, why now? >> i meant it. you should have done it last month. the house prices, nationwide, are 12% more expensive now than they were a year ago. so, you should have listened up in the first place. now, we have for every six houses, you could have chosen from, a year ago, now, we only have four. so, the shortage of houses is paramount. and it's going to shorten what you can buy. >> so, in terms of mortgage rates, because a lot of people think, oh, i've got time, because mortgage rates are -- >> do you really have time? >> do you really have time? >> nobody knows if you have time. all i know is marriage rates just started to inch up. what i do know for sure is, they are at 3.5%, which is the cheapest money you're probably ever going to see. >> if you have the choice between spending, i don't know, $500,000 to buy a new primary residence or to buy an investment property, what do you recommend? >> get rid of my current husband, find myself a young stud and buy a romantic home somewhere in the mountains where nobody could find us.

>> so, is that investment property or primary residence? >> no, but on a serious note, because i guess i'm going to keep my 25-year-old marriage, i hope after today, on a serious note, i would buy a vacation home. it's probably the on sector of the market that has still not turned the corner. so, if you have been dreaming about getting that place in the sky, of course, you have a little bit more wiggle room, but why would you wait with money being as cheap as it is? >> let me ask you something, with the tax changes that we've seen, for the higher end property, does that make a difference? >> yes, it does. the hardest thing right now is to get an interest only marriage, which is affluent people tend to like very much. and when you talk about a jumbo mortgage, it really includes just about every house in the northeast, which might explain, partially, why a house in the northeast have only gone up 2%, the ones out west have gone up a whopping 28%. i've never seen such a disparity between the northeast and the west. >> all right, there's a reason why we asked you on this show, "fast money," because brian kelly has a lot of money to burn in his pocket.

if he -- >> rich guy. >> if he wants to make one trade right now, where's the greatest opportunity. >> are you asking me a stock trade? >> oh, thank god. >> in terms of a market, a kind of property? >> you know, i would go into a market that clearly has turned the corner. i'm not a big risk taker. go to phoenix, arizona, right now, prices are up 28%. there's such a shortage of houses, go into portions of florida that everybody said were the worst investments, on the west coast, houses are up almost 21%. so, why wouldn't you go to the areas that you clearly know things have turned around, there's a shortage of houses. >> so, we've heard this a lot, there are pockets of strength out there. do those pockets of strength then start to bleed into other areas? because b.k.'s a risk taker. maybe i want to buy something that's cheap. >> well, you know what you do? the name brand areas, you go to palm beach, up a long time. go to the areas not quite as popular, they follow that lead. so, yeah, if you really want a deal, go to the up and coming rising markets around a neighbor

who is really affluent. but you want to know something, it depends on your appetite for risk. when you go to bed at night, you think, good, i can sleep well, i'm going to be happy to wake up here in the morning. >> barbara, thank you for stopping by. barbara on "shark tank," as well, great show. >> on friday night. >> exactly. >> 8:00. >> good plug, of course. friday night, 8:00. the trade here, you've been in realty, you trimmed your position. >> i talked about it with offcamera, i love it, but i like that die m thattic. i love the balance sheet leveredened i think we are going into an uptrend and we could see positive earnings. coming up next, he is the man behind "the hunger games" series. michael burns items us what an oscar is really worth. he joins us in the cnbc exclusive. stay tuned. hello!

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let's play the good, the bad and the ugly, tonight, starring karen. first, the good. last month, karen gave a warning about veriphone. take a listen. >> there is going to be tremendous pricing pressure on the hardware part of this system. we don't get how they get the free cash flow numbers they do,

the stock seems expensive to us. if you look at any other base besides adjusted aps. i don't know why the street doesn't look at those other metrics. >> of course, a big decline in shares today. a beating, in fact, down more than 40% after the company provided lower than expected first quarter guidance. karen? >> yuck. i mean, they just reported nothing good -- >> yuck for them, good for you. >> good to be short. we actually covered some last night, more today. we're still not quite out of it yet, but -- something's off here. i don't -- i wouldn't be jumping in thinking, wow, this is a discount from where it was two days ago. some something's off, meaning there's more than just the lower guidance? >> i have -- you know, i think that the point, the big acquisition they made is turning out to be way more problematic than they thought. some of the other things they discussed, it was hard for me to see how those were so relevant. >> like the uncertainty in venezuela. >> yeah, i didn't reali izize t

were a big venezuela play. i didn't realize that would be a problem. so, those kind of things -- i wouldn't be jumping in. >> and we were going to use this as the bad. >> i like gardner denver. we'll see a deal. >> i like gdi calls, but you have to go out to march or so. >> and guess what happened after the close? a big cod comes in for gdi. >> that was my bad. >> now it's a good. >> now it's a good. yes, we'll see. though -- a story of a deal, not an actual deal. we'll see. stock's trading up. >> so, what do you do here? do you trim your position at this point and wait for a real deal or not? >> yes, probably trim the position. >> all right, we're now just days away from hollywood's biggest night of the year. with the 85th academy awards slated for this sunday. lionsgate entertainment has had its share of blockbusters

lately. this year, the studio's pipeline includes a followup on the hit "hunger games" series which features best actress nominee jennifer lawrence. so, with the lucky few that will get an oscar this weekend, what is the recognition really worth? lionsgate's michael burns joins us exclusively to break it down. michael, good to see you. >> nice to see you, melissa. i wish i could see you, but nice to see you. >> is there any way to quantify what an oscar could mean for a studio like yours? >> it means a lot. the nominations mean a lot, because what happens, when people watch the oscars, the academy awards, they want to have a rooting interest. when you get nominated or an actor or actress gets nominated, people go out, they see the movie in a theater, you get the bump there, or they go out and rent or buy the dvd, so that they can have a rooting interest on all those people that were dominated. >> so, for instance, naomi watts in "the impossible." you can expect, possibly, a bump in people who want to see that movie after watching the or cars? >> i think so.

and by the way, the nice thing about the nominations, they'll be showing all the little clips and the actors and actresses will be wearing fantastic outfits, so, we'll have enormous publicity, billions of people will be tuned in for that. >> obviously, the follow to "hunger games", "catching fire" coming out next year. jennifer lawrence is in that mov movie, and she's up for best actress. does that have an impact on "hunger games." that's going to be a blockbuster. could that help even more if she won the oscar? >> i remember years ago i called halle berry the goddess of lionsgate after "monsters ball" and her academy award win. i have to say the baton has been passed and jennifer lawrence is truly the goddess of lionsgate. i think it helps her tremendously. it certainly helped harvey and bob's franchise, picture, "silver linings playbook." i'm conflicted, because naomi is in our movie and jennifer is in

another studio's movie. but i think the performances are tremendous. but i would argue, actually, that jennifer lawrence is probably the biggest female movie star in the world today. >> wow. your pick for best picture. you're an insider. we're all going to be in oscar pools here. we need all the help we can get. >> i think it's great -- we don't have a picture up this year, so, i won't be counting my own. i can't tell you which one i thought was my favorite, but i think it's "abo"argo's" to lose. "lincoln" is tremendous, as well. >> last question, michael. you have a wig pipeline in 2013. what's going to be the game changer for you? >> i'm pretty confident that actually "catching fire" will do well. i think it also, we've got some potential big hits in franchises, "red 2," the sequel coming out after "red 1." i feel very good about, i saw

the trailer yesterday for "ender's game." that likes very exciting. i'd say to say that "divergent," the book sales are doing better than the trajectory of "twilight" and "hunger games" at this point and that's neil berger, we have kate winslet. we think that could be a next franchise for us. up never know. we feel really good about it. >> i want to get to one rumor in the marketplace, and that is lionsgate as a takeout target, the media stocks have all been on tremendous runs, your stock, no different. recently hitting an all-time high. 2. billion, a lot of people saying that's a nice, tasty, sort of sizable but small enough acquisition to actually do, by a major media studio. is it possible? >> it is possible, i think it's possible. i will tell you that if you look at some of the market caps, you look at china mobile, for example, china mobile has a bigger market cap than news corp., disney, viacom and time

warner together. take a look at the market cap of some of these companies here, look at amazon's market cap of $125 billion. google at, what, $280 billion. >> where are you bringing me, michael, on all these market caps? >> what i'm saying is that the world has changed dramatically. so, if you're asking me specifically, is lionsgate a takeover candidate, that's ultimately something that our board of directors would have to approve and also that would be something that our shareholders would have to approve. >> are you saying we have to look outside media? you have to look towards maybe even a bigger company out there, think outside the box, in other worlds? >> here's what i think, melissa. if you take a look at tablets and smartphones that have been sold in, that are working out there right now, active tablets and smartphones, there are 2 billion of those out there in the marketplace, approaching that. a billion of those have been sold in the last year. so, i think all those, whether smartphones or tablets, all of them have the same need, which

is, what are they going to put upon them. >> okay. we're going to leave it there, michael. good to see you. >> nice to see you. thank you so much, you guys. >> michael burns. dr. j, where do you stand on this stock or other media -- >> this is one, of course, that carl icahn got rebuffed on and nearly triple from where he tried to buy it. imax, we talked about on this program for unusual activity. 12% higher in the last month. 24% in the last quarter. new 52-week high today on double normal volume. i think you take some off but i like both this one and lionsgate going forward. >> next on "fast," jane wells is looking for the next oil boom. jane? >> we're talking oil, black gold. texas tea. except in this case, melissa, it's california tea, which is natural little more complicated and expensive. but it could be huge. after the break. [ male announcer ] ok, here's the way the system works.

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puts. now, think about that. these puts are about two years out. that's unusual. the size, 18,000 contracts, that's also unusual. spending 8% of the current stock price to buy those. but what's most unusual, probably, is that strike is about 50% out of the money. so, this is a pretty chunky bearish trade on tesla. >> all right, mike, thank you for that. and "options action" tomorrow at 5:00, right here on cnbc. coming up next, a special look at how california is going digging for the next big oil boom. jane wells has got the story, so stay tuned. [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ [ indistinct shouting ] [ male announcer ] time and sales data. split-second stats. [ indistinct shouting ] ♪ it's so close to the options floor... [ indistinct shouting, bell dinging ]

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the biggest oil find in the country is located in the state with the highest gas prices. how convenient. but does the technology exist to get it out? jane wells has got the story from an old field in california. hey, jane. >> hey, melissa. people have been stopping by and asking, what is that for? well, companies are being very tight lipped, if they are having any success of tapping into 15 billion barrels of crude oil trapped in shale thousands of feet below where they've been

pumping conventional oil for a century here. take a look at this map. the shale may look smaller than, say, the bakken shale in north dakota, but it could have four times as much oil. why hasn't anyone gotten it out yet? we may nhave the technology now but geology in california is different, it's more twisted. hey, it's california, which makes drilling here more of a crap shoot. >> the geology is very tight. the pockets are very unpredictable in the monterey. >> so, jar see gra says he's still not seeing anybody packing up and going home. who is here? occidental is reportedly in the area. chevron says it doesn't see that much progress. so, how early are we in the exploration, what inning? >> probably in the recruitment phase. we are trying to figure out if we have a team.

and most folks think yeah. think it's a little bit farther, not a deep plunge right now. i'm not sure that there will be a breakthrough where suddenly you see an increase in production. probably more evolutionary. >> here's the thing. california has been fracking for decades, but this new deep hor sontal fracturing, they haven't done that. that's new here and the state doesn't even have rules for it yet. so, they're trying to hurry up and come up with some. >> jane wells in kettleman city, california, thank you. and dan, you actually got into an energy stock today. >> yeah, you know, it's a little stock, primarily located in texas. i know the management. really well-run company. but it's trading, it is approaching 52-week lows here. i'm starting to dip my toe in the water here. >> all right, let's hit pops and drops, the big movers of the day. drop for bank of america. karen? >> yeah, the back-to-back action, bank of america yesterday and today has not been so good but i'm still long.

>> pop here for safeway, up 14%. mike khouw? >> you know, after watching the whole foods story, they were supposed to be eating lunch of companies like safeway, but they had earnings beat by about 20 cents. they were seeing good same-store seas growth. this company is still cheap, actually, even at current levels, 11 times, though it's up from 16 bucks. >> jcpenney, the move, 7%, a pop, dan. >> this doesn't make a lotle of interes interest. there was a big options trade today, somebody bought the april 17, 20,000 by 40,000 times, next week's earnings are going to be a big one. >> drop by caterpillar, beekers. >> we saw china sales being down a little bit. i wouldn't what to be in this. if i was forced to be in this space, i look at joy. >> intel, a drop. the move 2%. doc? >> yeah, and on 60 million shares worth, too, so, it's much more than normal, which is about 40 million shares worth. i think you wait and see if this one breaks 20 or not.

>> all right, got a pop here for curly fridays. a woman in north carolina claims she's found a world record food item. that's no small poe day tee. it started when the woman opened up a bag from arby's and her order had one really really large fry. the supersized spud measured 38 inches long. about the average height of a 4-year-old child. if confirmed, that will make the curly fridayy a new world recor. delicious. first move tomorrow when we come right back. stay tuned. scalpel. clamp. glitter. [ male announcer ] staples makes it easier to get everything your business needs. even custom banners. and now get 50% off banners and posters. staples. that was easy.

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